Empty Place at the Table
by Trinitas
Summary: House was conspicuously absent from Chase and Cameron's wedding reception. Chase asked Cuddy why. Post-ep for S5's finale.


**Empty Place at the Table**

He finds Cuddy at the reception more by the sound of Rachel's crying than because he remembers anything about Cameron's seating charts. To his disappointment, House still hasn't shown up.

One thing for him to avoid the church; that hadn't really been surprising, but he'd have expected House to drop in for food and wine and to make a few obscene remarks about the impending honeymoon. "Did House say whether he'd be here or not?" he asks.

Cuddy offers Rachel a pacifier, which is fortunately accepted, before looking up at him. He sits down hard in the chair beside her, because her eyes are full of pain.

_Please don't let him be dead. _He holds her gaze, makes himself ask, "What happened?"

"He's at Mayfield," Cuddy says quietly. "I hoped you wouldn't ask until you got back from Melbourne, but I guess…" She draws a deep breath. "I'm sure he's sorry he missed your wedding."

He hasn't followed her past 'Mayfield.' "The…psychiatric hospital?"

He mustn't have heard her correctly. Granted, he'd been paying slightly more attention to the patient's viscera at the time, but House had called them idiots and volunteered an epiphany, same as he always had.

He'd been fine.

Hadn't he? Had there been some sign of a breakdown Chase should have seen that he'd missed?

"Suicide attempt?" His voice is steady: even that isn't as bad as it could be. For God's sake, House considers putting a knife in a wall socket a decent way to pass the afternoon.

They'd keep him on suicide watch for seventy-two hours, give him meds he would find a way not to take, establish that he'd just been running some mad experiment or other and then he'd be—

"No. He—Chase, he's psychotic. Hallucinating."

Chase feels his stomach twist into a knot and a chill lance down his spine. Still… "He doesn't necessarily have to be on a psych ward."

Had anyone thought to rule out organic causes? If House were out of touch with reality, any medical decisions probably would have been Wilson's call, and Wilson would entertain the possibility of a psychological disorder where House wouldn't.

"It could be organic—drug-induced, electrolyte imbalance, maybe delirium," he suggests. The familiar rhythm of the differential only accentuates House's absence. "He's younger than usual for that, but he's had prior brain injuries…sleep deprivation could precipitate it, too. Has he had an MRI? A tumor on the occipital lobe—"

If it's a physical problem, it can be treated, fixed, or at least managed. But if it's mental, if _he's_ mental…there's no neat medical roadmap out of that.

"Chase." Cuddy cuts him off, clasps his shoulder. "If anyone at Mayfield suspects something organic, I'm sure Wilson will give you his file in a heartbeat. But right now…it doesn't look like the problem is a tumor."

Meaning he's supposed to accept House has gone mad.

He manages to say something, possibly thank her for telling him, and gets up to find Cameron. She starts to smile at him, but the smile dies as she reads the look on his face. "Chase? What's wrong?"

"House. He wasn't at the wedding because he was checking into Mayfield Psychiatric."

"God…" She hugs him, and he blinks stinging eyes and swallows hard against the lump in his throat. "If you want, we can forget the honeymoon. We should be close by, in case…"

In case things get better. Or—more likely—worse.

"I'm sorry. I don't want to ruin—"

"You haven't ruined anything," she says, "and I wasn't really looking forward to spending twenty hours on a plane anyway."

He forces a laugh. Hugs her more tightly to anchor himself.

After the reception, he calls Wilson to ask about visiting hours—faster than calling the actual institution—and Cameron goes out to buy a card and flowers. He shakes his head but doesn't stop her: House will hate that kind of sentimental gesture.

At least, Chase hopes he's not too far gone to hate it.

"He's not…really himself," Wilson warns, but Chase tells him it doesn't matter.

He nursed his mother through mental illness worse than anything that could be in House's head, and he needs to see for himself how serious this really is. Needs to know.

He learnt from Rowan's death it's always better to have warning than not, and after four years in Diagnostics and two more playing House's personal surgeon, he can't pretend the man hasn't carved out a place in his life; can't pretend he doesn't care.

Sense-memory supplies an echo of clinging to House's lanky frame like a lifeline, trying to memorize him while desperate to hold back tears. There had been no goodbye this time, and House won't saunter out of the psych ward to inform them he'd just been playing mind games.

Stripping off his suit and hanging it back in the closet, he breathes a prayer for House's sanity and wellbeing. It feels silly, and worse, useless—medicine now fills the place faith once occupied—but scientific solutions have deserted him.

Even House doesn't have answers now, and that's the thought that finally makes the tears come.

**END.**


End file.
